


i'd follow you anywhere

by uselace



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Basketball, F/F, Fluff, WNBA au, duh - Freeform, idk what else to tag just read it please??, probably gonna add more characters as we go lol, star player gets injured and falls in love with the trainer au, they're lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uselace/pseuds/uselace
Summary: When Toni, the Minnesota Lynx's star player, gets injured in the off-season, her world comes crashing down around her.The weight of her dreams of a second championship rest on Shelby, the trainer's, shoulders as she tries to heal in time for the upcoming season.(And maybe, somewhere along the way they fall in love.)
Relationships: Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke, Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 72
Kudos: 445





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha who's good at writing summaries? not me! don't have much to say here except that this is heavily inspired by the tumblr post linked below, and all credit for the idea goes to them. i promise following chapters will have much more fluff.  
> https://yourstrullyme.tumblr.com/post/640529152207929344/i-need-someone-to-write-an
> 
> enjoy!

“Fuck,” Toni grunts as a stabbing pain shoots through her knee. “Fuck!” Her leg buckles beneath her, and she crashes to the ground before she has a chance to catch herself. 

Usually Toni’s philosophy around injuries is to just push through it. That’s what got her through college, after all. But this—this is different. The pain radiating from her knee is excruciating, and she can’t do anything to stop the tears that start falling as she clutches at the joint. “Shit!” She screams, anger bubbling up along with pain. 

It’s probably a pathetic sight, a star basketball player rolling around alone on the court with tears streaming down her face. For a minute, Toni is glad that nobody is around to see her like this. That relief is shattered when she realizes that she can’t walk, has no way to get help. As far as she knows, she’s the only one in the facility.

In other words, she’s completely fucked. 

She can barely see her bag with her phone in it through the pain and tears, but thankfully it’s only a few feet away on the sideline. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” Toni repeats as she grits her teeth and starts dragging herself toward the bag. It must be a miracle she doesn’t pass out on the way, especially with the way her head is spinning. 

With shaking hands, she desperately sorts through the bag until she finds her phone. She scrolls through her contacts until she finds her coach’s number, and hits the call button as fast as she can. 

“Toni?” Thank God, Toni thinks as she tries to calm herself down enough to talk. She’s still breathing heavily, and Coach must hear it through the phone, because with increasing urgency she asks, “Toni, what’s wrong?”

“My knee—I fucked up my knee,” Toni chokes out. “Can’t walk.” 

The phone is silent for a moment, and Toni can’t help the pained whimper that escapes as another wave of pain shoots through her leg. “Okay, breathe Toni. I’m gonna send someone to come get you. Are you at the gym right now?”

“Oh f—yeah, I’m in the main gym.” 

“Good. The new trainer is supposed to be in the building today, so I’ll tell her to help you out and get you to the hospital. I’ll meet you there, okay?” This is the most serious Toni has ever heard her coach, and it’s a little bit terrifying. 

But she pushes back the fear, instead sucking in a breath and agreeing. “Okay.” Coach hangs up as soon as Toni confirms, and she’s left alone on the floor once again. The tears have died down a bit, now, and she can breathe easier with the knowledge that someone is coming for her. Jesus fucking Christ, her leg hurts, though. 

Toni’s thoughts are interrupted when the gym door flies open and someone runs in. From her position on the floor, Toni can’t see who it is until the footsteps stop and a face appears directly above her. “You’re Toni?” The woman (who she assumes is the trainer) asks with a southern lilt to her voice.

“Who the fuck else would I be?” Toni asks harshly. The trainer flinches back slightly, and Toni immediately feels bad despite herself. “Sorry. Sorry, just—pain. Lots of pain.” 

“It’s alright,” the woman says with a small smile. “C’mon, let’s get you up and outta here.” She offers a hand, and Toni takes it gratefully. “You ready? On three.” Toni tightens her grip on the woman’s hand. “One.” She tries to get her good leg under her as best she can from her position on her back. “Two.” Toni prepares herself as best she can for the pain that she knows is going to come. “Three.”

By the time she’s standing, Toni’s voice is hoarse from screaming and swearing. Her good leg is threatening to collapse as well, and her head is spinning from pain. Thankfully the trainer rushes to loop Toni’s arm around her shoulders, and she immediately collapses against the other woman’s side. “I gotcha,” the trainer says as she starts the process of pretty much dragging Toni out of the gym. 

It takes some excruciating amount of time (Toni has no idea how long it actually is) before the two make it out of the hallways of the Lynx’s facility and through the doors. The cool air feels good against Toni’s tear-streaked face, and soon she’s being lifted into the trainer’s car. An ice pack is tossed back at her, which Toni gratefully accepts and presses to her knee. 

The car ride passes in a blur, mostly because Toni is delirious at this point from pain and dehydration. She occupies herself by staring at the back of the trainer’s head, noticing for the first time that she has blonde hair. 

“We’re here,” the trainer announces when they pull up to the team hospital. Coach is waiting by the doors with a wheelchair, and Toni has never been more happy that she doesn’t have to walk somewhere. The transfer from car to wheelchair is difficult and accompanied by screaming from all parties, but finally Toni is being wheeled into the hospital. 

At some point Toni registers that there’s a doctor in front of her, and the words “surgery” and “ACL” break through the haze in her head once or twice. There’s probably a form she signs, and someone must be tasked with changing her into a hospital gown, because Toni finds herself laying in an operating room. At a doctor’s request, she mumbles out a countdown from ten, and finally, she finds herself blissfully unconscious. 

///

When she wakes up the first time, the only light in her hospital room is coming from a small lamp in the corner. Toni can just make out someone curled up in a chair by the lamp, and it vaguely occurs to her that the figure has blonde hair. Within minutes, though, Toni’s eyes drift shut once again and she lets sleep take over.

///

The second time Toni wakes up, light is now streaming through the room’s small windows. She sits up quickly, trying to gather her bearings, and groans loudly when the shift shoots pain through her knee. Someone stirs in the corner of the room, catching Toni’s attention. “G’morning,” the trainer yawns. Toni just blinks at her, transfixed by the woman without pain clouding her vision. 

“Why are you here?” It’s not what she wants to say, but Toni can’t stop the words from coming out of her mouth. And instead of apologizing like she wants to, she just stares at the trainer across the room. 

“Well, the doctors said someone should stay with you to make sure there weren’t any complications. And I just figured it’d be best for me to stay, since I have at least some medical knowledge.” The explanation makes sense, so Toni offers a grunt of acknowledgement as she settles back into the bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” Toni mutters quietly. “Not so much excruciating pain.”

The trainer laughs, and Toni doesn’t know whether or not she should be offended at this strange woman finding humor in her pain. “Yeah, that was rough. Thank the Lord I was in the building, otherwise it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”

“Thank you. For helping, I mean.”

They stare at each other in silence, each assessing the other. “Of course,” the trainer finally breaks first. “I’m Shelby, by the way. If we’re gonna be workin’ together it’s probably good to know each other.” 

“Toni. Shalifoe. But you already knew that,” Toni laughs awkwardly. Shelby just smiles at her, toying with her necklace. 

“I did indeed. You’re the star of the team, as I understand it.” 

Toni smiles confidently at Shelby’s praise. She’s good, and she knows it—after all, the WNBA is what she’s spent nearly her entire life working toward. She was voted Rookie of the Year, has been an all-star both years of her career. She won a championship with the Lynx last year, and everyone in the basketball universe was counting on a repeat.

Counting on her.

And now… that might not happen. 

She descends into panic before she can stop it, caught up in thoughts of failing her team. What if she can’t get back in shape before the season, what if she’s the reason the championship slips away? It’s all going to be her fault, they’re going to lose everything, they’ll all blame her, they’ll—

“Toni.” Shelby’s voice breaks through her spiral, and Toni finally looks up to see that the trainer is much closer than before. She’s hovering over the bed now, hand covering Toni’s. “Just breathe. In and out, you’ll be fine. That’s it.” Toni measures her breathing until her heart rate slows and she can think again. “You’re okay. There we go.” 

Once Toni has sufficiently calmed down, Shelby starts to move away. In a moment of uncharacteristic panic, though, Toni grabs her hand to stop her. “Stay,” she says hoarsely. “Please. Just… can you tell me it’ll be okay?” 

She nods, sitting gingerly on the bed by Toni’s good leg. “It’ll be okay. Look, as someone who’s dealt with ACL tears a lot, I’ll have you ship-shape and on the court in no time. Y’all gotta win that championship, after all.” Toni gives her a small smile, hoping it conveys how grateful she is to the other woman, and Shelby returns it. 

Maybe it won’t be so bad.

(Toni changes her mind as soon as she moves her leg again. It’s definitely bad.)


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand i'm back! thank you so much to everyone who commented on the last chapter!! i didn't manage to reply to all of them and i probably won't be able to reply to every one on this chapter either, but know that i appreciate all of y'all. i roped my friend into beta reading this (thanks) so hopefully it seems a bit more polished. i hope this chapter lives up to the hype of the first chapter :)
> 
> enjoy!

Soon after she wakes up, a doctor makes her way into the room to check on Toni. “Miss Shalifoe?”

“That’s me,” Toni confirms, and she hopes it’s a good sign when the doctor smiles after flipping through her chart.

“Good news, you’re free to go,” the doctor announces, and Toni sags into the mattress in relief. “Normally we would have just let you go after the surgery, but due to the extreme stress you were under after the injury we thought it would be best to keep you overnight. If Miss Goodkind can confirm that there weren’t any problems, we can discharge you now.” 

Shelby smiles at her reassuringly as she confirms there weren’t any complications, and in a matter of minutes Toni has been left alone in the room to change back into street clothes. It’s a struggle to get pants on, but the pain meds the doctor gave her make it manageable. (Besides, Toni wouldn’t have let anyone else dress her anyway. It’s a matter of pride.) Shelby is waiting just outside the door when Toni slowly makes her way out of the room on crutches. 

“Ready to go home?” She asks, and Toni just nods gratefully. Getting used to the crutches is difficult, and Shelby has to considerably slow her pace on the way out of the hospital as Toni follows slowly behind. 

Fun fact: walking on crutches is fucking exhausting. By the time she’s out of the hospital, her arms are aching and she throws herself into Shelby’s backseat while sighing in frustration. “Type your address into my phone,” Shelby instructs as she gets into the front seat, turning around to hand Toni the phone. She nods when Toni gives the phone back and starts the car. “We’ll stop at the pharmacy to pick up your prescription for pain meds on the way, if you don’t mind.”

“Sounds good.” Toni settles into the seat as the trainer starts driving, finding herself once again staring at a blonde ponytail. 

The pharmacy trip is quick, which is good because Toni is bored out of her mind waiting alone in the backseat. As an added plus, traffic seems to be on their side, and soon enough Shelby is pulling up to the curb in front of one of the apartment buildings that serves as the team’s housing. She helps Toni out of the car cautiously. If she wasn’t so frustrated at being injured, Toni might think the whole thing was kind of cute. Alas, the only thing on her mind is how the hell she’s going to explain this to her roommate. 

“What the hell?!” Rachel asks as soon as she opens the door and sees Toni on crutches. “What the fuck?!” She corrects herself after a second, staring at Toni’s bandaged knee. 

“Got injured,” Toni mutters as she tries her best to push past her roommate. Unfortunately, Rachel isn’t one to give up, and Toni can’t exactly put up a solid fight without being able to put weight on her knee. 

“Hi.” Both heads swivel to Shelby, who’s still standing in the hall. “Shelby Goodkind, I’m the new trainer,” she introduces herself in that infuriatingly calming accent. “If I can just get past and drop off Toni’s meds, I’ll be out of y’all’s hair.” Rachel acquiesces and steps aside to let Shelby through, creating a chance for Toni to crutch through the doorway as quickly as she can in the trainer’s wake. 

Once she puts the pharmacy bag down, Shelby focuses her attention on Toni, who feels a bit like a deer in headlights. All she wants to do is lay down and try to forget everything that’s happened in the past 24 hours, but it’s clear that the trainer won’t be allowing that to happen. 

“You’re injured,” Shelby starts with an amount of authority that Toni didn’t expect from the small blonde. “So that means you should be moving as little as possible for the first couple days. Elevate your leg and ice it. If the swelling is still bad, I picked up some compression wraps. You are not to walk without the crutches or put weight on your leg right now. Rachel’s here, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Are we clear?”

Both of the basketball players are shocked into silence for a second, until Toni makes a slight squeaking sound. She clears her throat and tries again. “Yes.” 

The trainer turns to Rachel, who immediately nods and repeats Toni’s answer. “Good.” The blonde smiles sweetly, and Toni can’t help but be amazed at how quickly she can switch between being soft and intimidating. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the clinic,” she says, referring to the Lynx’s gyms and practice facility. 

“You will?” Toni can’t hide the surprise in her voice. 

“10:00 a.m. sharp,” Shelby says as an answer before she turns on her heel and walks out the door. Rachel and Toni just look at each other, eyebrows raised.

“That was… something.” Rachel looks like she’s still processing what just happened, and Toni can’t help but laugh at the expression on her face. 

“That’s one way to put it.” 

While Rachel keeps staring at her, Toni makes her way to their couch so that she can collapse on it and glare at her crutches. “Seriously, though, what happened? You were fine when you left yesterday morning.” 

“Tore my ACL,” Toni grunts. “Blondie was the only one in the gym, so she got stuck taking care of me.” Remembering Shelby’s words, Toni starts stacking pillows to prop her leg up on. 

“Dumbass. You better be healthy by the start of the season.”

“I fucking hope I will be.” 

///

As anyone could have predicted, it only takes Rachel two hours to get fed up with Toni’s constant requests for water, food, or a new ice pack. “Call Marty!” She shouts back after Toni tries to call her into the living room for the seventh time in twenty minutes. 

“No!” If there’s one thing Toni doesn’t want to do, it’s interrupt her best friend’s life (even though admittedly, having Marty around would make all of this more bearable).

“Stop being a bitch and call your damn friend,” Rachel growls from the hallway. Whoever decided she and Rachel should room together was an idiot, Toni decides. Nevertheless, she stops bothering Rachel in the hopes that Rachel will stop bothering her to call Martha. 

Which is why it’s such a surprise when a knock sounds on the apartment door thirty minutes later. Toni half expects it to be Shelby, back again with more instructions, but when Rachel opens the door, it’s Martha that’s standing there instead. She immediately rushes over to Toni, bombarding her with questions about the injury and what she needs. “Woah woah, slow down,” Toni eventually has to calm her friend down. 

“Sorry,” Marty says somewhat reluctantly. “But why the fuck didn’t you call me?!”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You know you could never bother me.” Toni is wrapped up in a hug, and it’s everything she’s needed since this nightmare started. It’s almost enough to make her start crying again, but instead she just buries her face into her best friend’s shoulder and tries to focus on something else.

Somehow she ends up thinking about the trainer with the accent,pretty blonde hair, and a deceptively strong frame. At that point she pulls away from the hug and states, “I need a distraction.” 

Martha perks up and grabs a deck of Uno cards out of her bag, just like Toni knew she would. They talk while they play, filling each other in on everything that they haven’t already texted about. Toni tells her story of getting dragged out of the gym by Shelby, only to stop when Marty stares at her with raised eyebrows. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, it’s nothing,” her friend replies casually, but Toni knows better than to believe her.

“Seriously, why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s just… you talked a lot about her muscles. And hair. And also her voice.”

Toni is incredulous, immediately jumping to defend herself. “I was delirious! Those are like, the only things I remember aside from the pain.” Martha doesn’t seem convinced, though, so Toni gives up and mutters “whatever.” 

Uno is a bit more tense after their exchange. Toni tries to think of more reasons why it’s not weird that she mentioned Shelby’s strength and hair and voice so much, but comes up disappointingly empty. It doesn’t help that now that Martha has put the idea in her head, Toni is thinking about the trainer  _ more _ . 

“I’m glad you’re okay, you know.”

“I know,” Toni confirms with a soft smile, and it doesn’t matter that she’s injured or thinking about the trainer, as long as she’s with her best friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will always accept feedback on how ACLs work (and thank you to everyone who offered to be a consultant on knees last chapter lmao)


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am back once again! i'm gonna try my best to keep a regular-ish upload schedule of 1-2 times a week, but my semester ends next week so that might fuck things up a lil. otherwise i don't think i have much to say except thank you so much for all the comments so far and i really appreciate them (also shoutout to my beta reader i doubt you're reading this but i love you). 
> 
> hope you enjoy!

She’s only two days in and Toni is already fed up with being injured. 

It certainly doesn’t help that she has to wake up at 9 am so that Martha can drive her over to the clinic to meet Shelby. 

“Kill me now,” she groans as she’s crutching to the car, Marty following close behind. 

“I would, but then I would miss all your bragging about being a professional athlete,” Marty teases. “Now get in the car. I don’t want to get between you and the trainer.” That only makes Toni groan louder. Right as she turns around to fire back a reply, Martha pushes her into the car and slams the door shut. 

“Rude.” 

“Y’know, I could totally just take your crutches and leave you stranded.” 

Martha starts the car nonchalantly, ignoring the way Toni’s jaw drops and the over-exaggerated gasp she gives. “You wouldn’t.” 

“I wouldn’t,” she agrees with a sly smile. “But the point is, I could.” 

Silence falls over them for the rest of the ride, interrupted only when Martha turns on the radio and lands on a station playing P!nk, which of course means they both have to sing along. They’re still belting out the lyrics when they pull into the parking lot. Toni may or may not be using it as an excuse to not actually go into the building, because frankly she would much rather stay in the car than confront the trainer again. 

That just makes it worse when a knock sounds on Toni’s window, causing her to visibly jump. At the window, of course, is Shelby, sporting a huge smile. She motions for Martha to roll the window down, and Toni has to fight the urge to slide down in her seat and try to hide. 

“Hey, y’all!” Shelby greets them. Martha greets her back just as enthusiastically, but all Toni can manage is a grunt. It’s too early for this shit, she decides. Clearly Shelby doesn’t get the memo. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m the new trainer, Shelby.” 

“Martha, Toni’s best friend.” She shakes Shelby’s extended hand through the window. Toni considers jumping out the window and crutching away as fast as she can. 

“Well, it was mighty fine to meet you, Martha,” Shelby smiles brightly. “But we’d better be movin’ on into the gym here. Toni?”

“Huh?” Hearing her name jolts Toni out of her fantasies of getting abducted by aliens, and she immediately stiffens up and bangs her head on the ceiling of the car.

“Ready?”

Opting to stay in silence, Toni tries her best to ignore Martha’s laughter and climbs out of the car with her crutches. “See you later, ex-best-friend,” she says to Marty through the still-open window, but her friend just laughs harder in response. “Ugh, let’s go.” 

“Love you!” Marty screams as Shelby starts to escort Toni to the building, but Toni chooses to ignore her and focus on not face-planting before she’s even inside. 

Luckily, Toni is finally getting the hang of walking on crutches, and it takes no time at all for her to follow Shelby to the trainer’s office (or at least, it feels that way). Once in the room, Shelby points her to the elevated table in the corner where Toni takes a seat. 

Shelby sits opposite her and explains that she has to do a quick examination of Toni’s knee before they can start any exercises. “How’s the pain so far?” She asks while she’s poking around the bandages.

“It was better before you were poking me,” Toni winces. “But the meds and everything helped a lot, if that’s what you were asking.” 

“That’s good to hear. And the swelling came down?” Shelby has moved on to lightly massaging the area around her knee, staring up at Toni until she mutters a vague affirmation. “In that case, we’ll start with some mobility exercises to try to regain extension. Lie back?” Toni does as she’s asked, watching one of the fluorescent lights above her flicker. She manages to completely zone out while Shelby is moving her knee around in various exercises. The whole thing is surprisingly relaxing, and Toni doesn’t even realize she’s falling asleep. Until someone slaps her non-injured knee and startles her so much that she almost falls off the table. “Time for the stationary bike,” Shelby gets out in between fits of laughter. Toni frowns as the trainer continues laughing at her. “Sorry— it’s just that I’ve never had a patient fall off the table before.” 

“I didn’t fall off,” Toni mutters, but it’s a lost cause. She sighs loudly and pulls herself off the table, nearly landing on Shelby’s foot with her good leg. 

“Careful there!” The trainer yelps. “Wouldn’t want to have you injure me, too.” It’s not great that she probably thinks the basketball player’s a huge klutz, but at least she’s not laughing anymore, and Toni will take literally anything else over being laughed at. 

She turns her attention to the stationary bike across the room and does her best to climb on without slipping or toppling the bike somehow. Shelby watches over her, then comes over and fiddles with the controls on the bike when she’s sure that Toni is firmly on it. 

“Somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour is a good starting point for you,” Shelby informs her. “You can get started whenever, and I’ll just be at my desk. But I’ll be timin’ you, so don’t try anything funny like leavin’ early.” Once she’s satisfied that Toni understands, the trainer turns her back and sinks down in front of a computer in the corner of the room. 

Toni slowly starts pedaling. After the first few rotations (and Shelby’s exercises earlier) her knee feels like it’s loosening up a bit, or whatever you call it in trainer-speak. Unfortunately, Toni has the attention span of a first-grader, and she quickly gets bored pedaling on the bike without any other distractions. “Where are you from?” She asks Shelby in a moment of desperation for something else to do. 

“Texas.” If Toni has learned anything about the trainer in the past few days, it’s that she never runs out of things to talk about, so the one-word answer is kind of surprising. 

“That’s cool,” she says anyway. “I grew up on a reservation not too far from here. Martha basically grew up with me, and her mom ended up adopting me. So I guess technically we’re sisters, but it’s just weird to think about, y’know?” Shelby just nods from her desk, and Toni is seriously considering purposely falling off the bike just to get a reaction out of her. “Do you miss Texas? I bet the weather’s a lot different, huh?” 

“I don’t miss it,” Shelby says after a moment. “I don’t… I don’t really have family there anymore, so there’s nothin’ keeping me there. And I actually like the weather here. It’s better than constantly gettin’ sunburned.” 

“Well, that’s just ‘cus you’re white,'' Toni laughs from the bike. Once again, only awkward silence comes from Shelby’s corner. “So, do you… have a boyfriend or anything?” She blurts out, then immediately regrets it. “Fuck. I’m sorry, that was creepy. Don’t answer that.” 

Finally, Shelby turns around in her chair, and Toni is glad to see that she’s smiling. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she answers easily, but there’s something dancing in her eyes that Toni can’t quite identify. “You’re past the ten-minute mark, by the way. Keep going.” 

“Noooooo,” Toni groans, flopping her torso over the front of the bike. “Don’t you have, like, a magic potion or something that I can drink and not be injured anymore?” 

“Trust me, if that existed, I wouldn’t have a job anymore.” 

“Well, this is terrible.”

“Y’know, I think this might be the most complainin’ I’ve ever heard from a patient,'' Shelby laughs. “For a basketball player, you don’t seem to have the best stamina.”

“Excuse you, I have great stamina,” Toni fires back. “Just ask any of my girlfriends.”

The room goes silent aside from the faint sound of pedaling, and Toni realizes that somehow she must have said something wrong. She can’t think of anything, though, except for the girlfriends comment. And Shelby had to have known that; Toni’s been out since her early college ball days and her girlfriends have been extensively discussed in most tabloids. 

It would really fucking suck if Shelby was homophobic. 

With that thought bouncing around in her head, Toni finishes the rest of the session without saying anything else. By the time she dismounts the bike, she’s sweating through her shirt and all her focus is diverted to not falling over when she stands up. Still, she can’t help but hope that Shelby will turn around like nothing happened and escort her out of the building. 

Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t happen. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Toni asks half-hopefully when she’s standing in the doorway. 

“Yeah, same time,” Shelby replies with a stiff smile after she half-turns around in her chair. Figuring it’s better than nothing, Toni sees herself out of the building. She tries not to think about what happened, but of course that only leads to all her trying desperately to analyze Shelby’s silence. 

Shit. 


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i ended up being gone for longer than i meant to be (whoops), but hopefully things have settled now and i can get back to posting regularly-ish. no guarantees, though. as always thanks to my wonderful beta reader, and thank you guys for all the comments you've left so far! i can't tell you how much it helps 😌
> 
> enjoy!

If there’s one thing Toni wasn’t expecting after the hot-trainer-might-actually-be-homophobic debacle with Shelby, it was for the trainer to show up knocking at her apartment the next morning. 

“Hi,” the blonde greets Toni when she throws open the door. 

It takes a minute for Toni to process what’s happening, which means she stands in the doorway opening and closing her mouth for an embarrassingly long time. When she finally does manage to say something, it’s only “Um…”, followed by Martha shouting, “Come in!” from the living room. Shelby slowly edges past her into the apartment, looking just as uncomfortable as Toni feels. 

“Hey!” Martha exclaims when she sees the trainer, completely oblivious to the tension between her and Toni.

“Hi,” Shelby repeats herself quietly, and only then does Toni notice the bag she’s clutching in her hands. She must notice Toni staring, because she self-consciously glances down at the bag. “I wanted to get you food, but I didn’t know what you’d like, so I figured donuts were a safe option.” The trainer thrusts the bag at Toni, who nearly drops it in surprise. 

“Thanks. I guess.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Sorry—why are you here? Besides the donuts?” 

At that moment, Rachel barges into the conversation, interrupting Shelby right as she opens her mouth. “Did I hear donuts?” Toni just sighs and hands the bag over, watching as Rachel rushes over to the table to split the donuts up with Martha. It quickly becomes clear that she’s not going to get any privacy with Shelby while her friends are around, so Toni makes up her mind and pulls the other woman out into the hall by the elbow. 

“Talk. Because if you’re homophobic, this is gonna be an issue,” Toni gestures between them. Shelby looks a bit taken aback at her directness, standing across from Toni with her eyebrows raised, but after a second she manages to compose herself.

“I thought I could pick you up today, so Martha doesn’t have to drive.” 

Now it’s Toni’s turn to be taken aback. “What.” She makes no effort to hide how pissed she is at this turn of events, tone flat and arms crossed. 

“Are you ready?” 

It takes every bit of restraint Toni can muster to not start yelling at the trainer right then and there. Instead she mutters, “Yeah yeah, just gimme a minute,” and trudges back into the apartment to get her things. Marty’s eyes go wide when she sees how mad Toni must look, but she shakes her head roughly and that’s enough for her best friend to leave it alone. 

_ This is just fucking great.  _

The car ride to the clinic is absolute torture for Toni, who at this point doesn’t even want to be in the same room as Shelby, much less trapped in a car with her. This is her personal version of Hell, she realizes at one point, and it’s almost enough to make her start laughing at how terrible it all is. Almost. 

Shelby is the first to break the silence. “Look, I’m sorry for makin’ things weird yesterday,” she starts when they’re stopped at a red light. “I know this ain’t an excuse, but I was raised in a very traditional and Christian environment. I don’t believe any of that anymore, and I sure as hell don’t hate you. It’s just—I guess I still need to figure some things out for myself. It threw me off when you said it, that’s all.” 

“It threw you off.” Toni deadpans. “That’s bullshit. And it’s a green light.” Shelby visibly clenches her jaw, looking ahead and away from Toni as she makes her way through the intersection. 

Nobody tries to resume the conversation until the car is parked in front of the practice facilities. “Look, Toni,” Shelby tries again. She must have some kind of psychic power, because when Toni turns to try to make her escape out of the car, the door is already locked. She’s trapped. “I told you yesterday that I don’t have family in Texas anymore. That’s because they kicked me out as soon as I was 18. Growin’ up in that environment, one where I was taught to hate myself, was hard. And that stuff is hard to unlearn, even if I know it’s a load of shit. So yes, maybe I fucked up yesterday. I’m sorry. But you’re still gonna have to work with me, and vice versa.” 

Toni is quiet, focusing on staring out the window until Shelby lets her out of the car. The whole situation still seems kind of fucked, and she’s not entirely sure she believes that the trainer isn’t homophobic. But religious trauma is a bitch, so she doesn’t push the issue. 

Once they’re back in Shelby’s office, Toni makes her way straight to the bike as the other woman gets settled at her desk. It’s somehow more awkward than yesterday, and Toni feels the same urge to fill up the silence. “I don’t have parents either, you know,” she offers after around ten minutes of silence. “My dad walked out and if my mom isn’t dead by now, she’s still in rehab. So, y’know, at least you got to have your parents around.” 

Shelby stiffens from her place at the desk, then relaxes. “I’m sorry about your parents,” she says softly after a minute. 

“I’m over it now,” Toni assures her. “I had Marty’s mom. It just would’ve been nice to know them.” 

They fall back into a silence that stretches on, although it’s slightly less awkward than the previous ones. Toni just keeps pedaling, trying not to think too hard about what Shelby said in the car.  _ I was taught to hate myself.  _ That could mean anything, especially in uber-religious households. 

(A prickling tells Toni that it doesn’t mean just anything, though. She can’t shake the feeling that it means  _ something _ , something specific.)

“Halfway done,” Shelby notifies her. Toni grunts as a reply and focuses on making it to the end of the session. She’s given up on talking at all, mostly just wants to go home and lay on the floor to practice her shot. 

The final half-hour drags on at a snail’s pace. Toni resorts to counting the ceiling tiles in order to occupy herself and keep from staring at Shelby’s ponytail. This is just as bad as being stuck in the car with the trainer. 

As soon as Shelby turns around to announce that they’re done, Toni flops off the bike and onto the floor to cool down (being careful of her knee, of course). She can hear the other woman stifling her laughter, but Toni is too emotionally and physically exhausted to give much of a shit. “Do you have a ride?” Shelby asks with a small grin on her face. 

“Yeah, Marty should be picking me up,” Toni replies, and she catches a slight look of disappointment on Shelby’s face before the trainer shakes it off. 

“Alrighty then. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Toni doesn’t say anything in response, focused on getting herself off the floor and getting the hell out of the building. Unfortunately, Shelby’s voice stops her right before she exits the office. “Oh, by the way, I’m gonna text you some exercises I want you to do at home later.”

“Cool,” she says, even though it’s decidedly not cool. She then takes her opportunity to leave before the trainer can say anything else, making her way through the halls as fast as she can on the crutches. 

_ Well, all of that went terribly _ , she decides the minute fresh air hits her face. Sure enough, Marty is waiting for her in the parking lot, though, and at least she’ll have the opportunity to complain about the hell she just went through (and complain she does). 

///

Shelby texts her later that night. Toni ignores it, no matter how much she wants to talk to the trainer. Instead she spends most of the evening laying on her back, shooting a ball up at the ceiling while she tries to puzzle through her feelings. The only issue with that is that Toni has never been good at feelings, as Martha can attest. 

After all, you can’t get your feelings hurt if you don’t have any. 

(“ _ No! _ ” Marty protests when Toni tells her this, but she just ignores it and goes back to shooting on the floor.)

So it’s decided. She’s not having any feelings for the new trainer.


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all's comments on the last chapter made me laugh so hard, so thank you for that. in terms of characters - the main four we've seen so far will stay pretty involved, and fatin might get more screentime, but i'm not entirely sure about the other three. beware, most of this was written past midnight, so it may or may not be a mess lol. 
> 
> enjoy!

Two weeks pass and Toni has proven herself right; it's so much easier to be around the trainer now that she's squashed down her feelings. After 12 more sessions with Shelby and nightly exercises, Toni finally gets cleared to throw out the crutches (on the condition that she’ll still take it easy and wear her new brace). They’ve moved on to actual physical therapy now, and although it’s a vast improvement compared to spending hours on a stationary bike, it’s not enough to stop Toni from getting antsy to get back on the court. 

“When can I actually dribble a ball again?” Toni asks Shelby on one Wednesday during a session. It’s the ninth day in a row she’s asked the question. The trainer has started keeping track on a sticky note above her desk. 

“Soon,” Shelby answers for the ninth time. Toni groans and goes back to doing half squats, with the trainer standing next to her. Over the past week, Shelby has seemed to be getting incrementally closer to her whenever they’re together, which Toni would be smug about if it didn’t completely interrupt her no-feelings rule. 

Unfortunately that rule is interrupted even further when, by some act of violence on the part of the universe, several people happen to be in Minnesota at the same time. Which means that Martha insists on going out with everyone and drags Toni and Rachel along. It’s usually not that bad—made up of Rachel’s sister Nora, Toni’s college roommate Fatin and her girlfriend Leah, and Martha’s friend Dot, they’re generally a chill group. Except this time Martha insists on inviting Shelby to go out with them, because apparently she takes pleasure from torturing Toni. 

Even worse, Toni gets stuck with the task of asking Shelby to accompany the group. She procrastinates right up until the day they were planning on going out, when she finally musters up her courage under threat of Marty’s angerif she doesn’t ask. “Um,” she starts as the trainer is wrapping up their session that day. 

“Yeah?” Shelby doesn’t even turn around, leaving Toni to awkwardly fidget behind her and try to avoid staring at… various body parts.

“So there’s this thing.”

“Yes?” the trainer repeats, although this time she slowly turns around and Toni has to resist her instincts to flee. 

“A bunch of our friends from all over ended up here for a couple days, and we’re going out for drinks or something tonight, and Marty made me invite you.” 

Shelby is silent as she studies Toni for a second, almost like she’s waiting for the invitation to be retracted. When that doesn’t happen, she frowns slightly, and this was not the reaction Toni expected. “I dunno… it might not be the most ethical thing for me to drink with a patient,” she drawls. Toni feels embarrassment tightening in her chest as she prepares for the impending rejection, even though realistically  _ she’s _ not the one being rejected. “I suppose, though, if I were to just happen to stumble upon y’all at a bar, and I wanted to be polite and stay for just one drink, that would be fine.” 

A smile breaks out on her face before Toni can stop it. It’s all a little ridiculous—if this is how she’s reacting to asking Shelby to go out with their friends, God knows what she’ll do if she ever actually asks the trainer out—but somehow it feels like a victory nonetheless. Toni makes her way out of the building triumphantly, announcing to Marty upon getting in the car that she was successful. 

It’s only then that one vital fact registers: if Shelby’s going drinking with them, that means that Toni will see her. Outside of the clinic. In something other than leggings and a t-shirt. 

Toni’s brain seems to short-circuit as she tries to wrap her head around the concept of Shelby in anything other than athletic clothes. Rushing up into her face and chest and the pit of her stomach are  _ feelings _ , and Toni takes little solace in the fact that they're mostly feelings of attraction to the trainer. 

(If Toni were in a tv show, this is the moment where she would fall onto her knees, screaming “Why me?!” up at the sky. It’s still tempting, but she might not be able to get back up afterward—more proof the universe hates her.)

When they get back up to the apartment, Fatin and Nora are already there, sitting in the living room with Rachel. Fatin jumps up when she sees Toni, ready to hug her until she sees the obnoxious brace sitting on the athlete’s knee. “Dude, what the fuck?” Fatin gestures to the injured knee, which only attracts Nora’s attention. Toni just sighs and recounts the story of how she was injured, making sure to not mention Shelby’s muscles or hair or voice at all this time. 

Dot arrives soon after, knocking at the door while Toni is getting out of the shower. As expected, the minute Dot notices the brace she asks something along the lines of “What the fuck happened to you?” Toni tells the story and tries her best to not think about the trainer at all as she does so. “I bet cargo pants could fit over that thing. They have great storage. I could always lend you some,” Dot offers when Toni finishes the story. 

“Thanks, but I think it’s pretty clear that I’m gay already,” Toni replies, inwardly cringing as she pictures herself in cargo pants. 

“Not to Shelby, it wasn’t,” Marty mutters from a few feet away, and Toni suddenly finds that she misses her crutches. Even if they were a pain in the ass, they were great for hitting people. 

They all sit around and catch up for nearly an hour before they head out. Fatin announces at some point that Leah will be meeting them at the bar, and Toni confirms that Shelby has the address. No matter how inconvenient the whole thing is for Toni, she has to admit that it’s nice to see everybody again. After most of them met in college, they started to drift apart. Dot got a job somewhere on the west coast producing a survival tv series, Fatin and Leah ended up in New York, where Fatin made it big in the fashion industry, and Nora… Nora was doing something. She and Toni don’t really talk much. 

With the exception of a few pairs within the group, none of them are super close anymore. There’s something big going on in everyone’s life, which makes Toni a bit self-conscious considering that the only thing she’s been doing lately is getting her ass kicked by a combination of feelings and physical therapy. Not that Toni will ever admit that. 

Eventually they leave the apartment. It takes two cars to transport them all, and Toni discovers the best thing about not being able to drive: she can’t be the designated driver. Leah’s already there, waiting outside for them. She greets Fatin with a kiss before greeting the rest of them. Of course, her greeting to Toni consists of simply, “What the hell?” 

Toni is quickly getting tired of telling the story, so when she sees Shelby walking up to the group, she jumps on her chance. She pushes Shelby to the center of their group, ignoring the questioning looks everyone’s giving her. “This is the trainer. She was there, she can give you a very detailed report of what happened.” Shelby is kind enough to tell the story without asking any questions, but it’s not until much later in the night that Toni realizes her mistake. 

By the time two hours pass, everyone except the designated drivers of the group are pretty much trashed. Toni made it her mission when they entered the bar to get as drunk as she could as quickly as possible, and  _ boy _ did she succeed. Another plus side of being injured is that she can use it as an excuse to skip dancing. So, for considerable chunks of the night, she’s been alone in a booth taking a shot every time she catches herself staring at Shelby. Drunk might be an understatement at this point. 

It’s then that Fatin chooses her moment to strike. At first, when she sidles up to Toni, it seems innocent. “Drinking away your sorrows?”

“Yeah, if my sorrows include having to watch you and Leah make out,” Toni laughs. The words are only a little bit slurred, so she doesn’t understand why Fatin is looking at her so strangely. 

“Why didn’t you tell us that Shelby basically carried you out of the gym?” Fatin asks as she slides into the booth opposite Toni. “And also, she stayed with you the whole first night?”

“Because it wasn’t important.” It would probably be a more effective statement if Toni could meet Fatin’s eyes, but she’s determined to stare at a drawing of boobs on the wall beside Fatin’s head instead. 

The other woman narrows her eyes, leaning back and looking Toni up and down. “Oh, you have it bad.” 

“I—what? No!” Toni sputters. It might be the least convincing lie she’s ever told. “There are no feelings. Zip. Zero. None. Nada.” 

It’s definitely not a good sign that Fatin starts laughing. “I’ve only seen you like this once, and that was when you were crushing on Reagan sophomore year. You can’t fool me, Shalifoe.” Now it’s Toni’s turn to lean back in her seat, trying to sort through the fuzziness of the alcohol to remember what Fatin’s talking about. And the worst possible thing happens—

Toni realizes Fatin’s right.

Maybe she’s even worse at feelings than she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should the next chapter be from shelby's pov 👀


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ask for shelby's pov after i tell you to and you shall receive! sorry this a day late, there is a lot going on right now to put it mildly. also this is... much more angsty than i originally intended this story to be so ummm sorry in advance for that.
> 
> enjoy!

_ The trainer jolts awake when she hears her phone vibrating incessantly on the nightstand. This is not the way she wanted to start her morning. Shelby groans when she turns over to check who the hell is calling her this early, only to violently press the decline button. Her mother has tried to call her three times in the past month, and each time Shelby considers answering just to yell at the woman who stood by as she was kicked out. She never does, though.  _

_ A voicemail starts playing, cutting through the silence. “Please, Shelby, can you just pick up the phone? Melody is graduatin’ college in January. I know she wants you there. Call me, please.” Laughter bubbles up in Shelby’s throat, but she chokes it back. There’s so much her mother doesn’t know. _

_ She doesn’t know that Shelby is still in contact with her siblings, years after the last time she’s seen them. She doesn’t know that Shelby worked nights at a shitty convenience store to put herself through college, chasing a career that would take her out of the South. Hell, she doesn’t even know where Shelby lives; otherwise she would have just sent tickets to Melody’s graduation in the mail.  _

_ It’s infuriating that she pretends to care. _

_ Shelby still feels her skin crawl whenever she thinks back to afternoons in Bible group and the way Dave Goodkind stared at her until she wanted to burrow into herself. Remembering the night she was kicked out is enough to send her into days of crying and sitting in the dark, even now.  _

_ In Shelby’s mind, the woman who raised her was just as bad as her father. So she rolls over once more, anger clouding her judgement, and types out the first text she’s sent to her mother in years. _

Don’t contact me anymore.

_ Her phone gets thrown across the room after that.  _

_ When Shelby pulls up to the clinic hours later, she’s eager to put the morning out of her mind. As it turns out, she finds the perfect way to do so. Toni and a woman Shelby doesn’t know are sitting a couple cars away, seemingly arguing about something. The trainer makes up her mind in a split second and starts marching over to Toni. Pasting on her best smile, she knocks on the window. “Hey, y’all!” _

_ Martha, Toni’s best friend, introduces herself, and the whole time Toni sits in the back seat looking like she would rather be anywhere else. (Honestly, Shelby would rather be curled up in bed watching some stupid reality tv show, so she can relate.) She figures the least she can do is spare Toni more embarrassment at the hands of her friend, so after saying goodbye to Martha, she helps escort Toni into the clinic.  _

_ The good news is that once Shelby can examine Toni’s knee, she sees no reason the basketball player won’t be able to make a full recovery in time for the season. The bad news is that the trainer can’t get her mother and Texas out of her head, and apparently Toni is the type of person who can’t sit in silence.  _

_ Admittedly, she enjoys listening to Toni. The player’s questions pull Shelby out of her head a bit, at least until hometowns come up, and then Shelby is right back where she started.  _

_ Shortly after that is when Shelby fucks up. She’s half-listening to Toni; mostly just counting down the minutes until she can be alone in her office. Right as she tunes back in, Toni makes some off-hand comment about girlfriends. _

_ Shelby freezes. _

_ She knows it’s not the right reaction. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice is screaming for her to just say something, try to diffuse the situation somehow. But she’s transported back to high school, to something similar she heard right before it all went to shit. Shelby thought she was past all of it, and she had finally started to accept herself in Minnesota. In her head, though, is the voice of the girl she met at that gay bar Becca took her to. If she focuses on the memory, Shelby can still see the flash of the camera capturing the picture that ended her life as she knew it.  _

_ However, Toni doesn’t know that. And Shelby doesn’t intend to tell her, so she stays silent and pushes down all the feelings gathering in her chest. She knows she’s making it worse, but at least this way she can control it.  _

_ On the bright side, her mother doesn’t call her again after that day.  _

///

Toni has been quieter ever since Shelby fucked things up. It certainly doesn’t seem like the player accepts her apology (which was only a half-truth), so Shelby resigns herself to silent sessions and strange looks. 

Maybe that’s why she’s so surprised when two weeks later Toni asks the trainer to go out with her. Well, out with friends, not her specifically, but still. Even more surprising is the fact that Shelby falls in easily with the group. She was irrationally nervous about the night, and probably changed outfits ten times, but all of the women she meets are nice. Dot is a fellow Texan, a rarity in a city like Minneapolis. Fatin seems to be analyzing Shelby, always looking at the trainer like she knows something. It’s a little off putting, but Shelby ignores it in favor of getting drunk. She has a chance to escape her head for once, and she takes it.

The night passes quickly. By the end of it, Shelby has been added to a group chat with the other seven, and she realizes she’s forgotten how nice it feels to be a part of something. When they finally decide to turn in for the night, Shelby finds herself standing next to Toni outside the bar. The player spent nearly the whole night sitting alone in a booth drinking, and from the way she’s avoiding looking at Shelby, the trainer suspects she might have been the reason. 

“Are you still mad at me?” she blurts. 

“What?” Toni turns to frown at her, and Shelby doesn’t miss the way she’s nervously fidgeting with her hands. 

“Are you ma—” Shelby starts to repeat, but she’s cut off.

“Yeah, I heard you. I was just… processing it.” The player leans against the brick wall behind them, adjusting her weight so that it’s mostly on her good leg. “I’m not mad, I don’t think.”

Shelby considers the other woman for a moment, thinking over her response. “You think. So you’re not sure?”

“I’m still deciding,” Toni says as she turns to face Shelby, this time sporting a small smile. “Honestly though, people have said worse to me. Plus I get mad a lot, and I’ll probably move on soon. So you’re in the clear.” She seems to reconsider her words before adding, “Probably.”

“Good to know,” Shelby laughs, and it feels like a weight is lifted off her chest. Toni seems to loosen up after that, too. The energy between them isn’t quite as tense, which is a relief. 

Later that night she’s lying in bed when her phone goes off. It’s a text from Fatin, separate from the group chat. 

_ Toni likes chocolate sprinkle donuts. _

_ In case you were wondering ;) _

Shelby doesn’t know why Fatin is texting her information about donuts, and she’s too tired to think about it. Instead she texts back  _ thanks  _ and sets her phone down, filing the information away for later use. 

As she turns off the light to go to sleep, Shelby finds that she’s looking forward to seeing Toni again tomorrow. It’s strange, especially after the weird couple weeks between them, but for now she passes it off as the product of mending her relationship with Toni. 

And if she wakes up the next morning still thinking about the basketball player—well, that isn’t anybody’s business. 


	7. seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on time! although i've also been busy writing a research paper so umm hopefully this is coherent. once again thank you for all the comments on the last chapter, they give me life.
> 
> enjoy!

The morning after they go out, Toni wakes up with a pounding headache. It’s been a while since she’s gotten a hangover this bad. Rachel yelling and banging on her bedroom door certainly isn’t helping the pain. “Get your ass up!”

“Fuck off!” Toni yells back, but Rachel just opens the door and throws something at her. Once the room stops spinning, Toni figures out that it’s one of her many pairs of basketball shoes. “What the fuck?”

“Get dressed,” Rachel says before leaving the doorway. After staying in bed dumbfounded for a solid minute, Toni finally drags herself onto her feet and into the kitchen. 

“What’s happening?” 

Fatin is the one who answers, nursing a cup of coffee. “Rachel is taking you shooting.” 

“Um, why? And no offense, but why are you here?” Nothing is making sense to Toni, especially this early in the morning when she just wants to go back to bed. Her brain is moving at a snail’s pace trying to figure out what’s going on. 

“Fatin’s here because Leah had to meet someone and she can’t do anything without her girlfriend,” Rachel cuts in. “And I’m taking you shooting because you looked fucking miserable last night.” Fatin nods wisely in the background, and Toni rolls her eyes even as she turns around to make her way out of the kitchen. 

Five minutes later, she’s changed into an old jersey and basketball shorts. Any annoyance at Rachel has turned into excitement at the thought of getting back into a gym. Unfortunately, she runs right into Martha when she tries to get out of her bedroom. “What are you doing?” Marty asks, eyeing her best friend suspiciously.

“Nothing,” she tries to lie, but Martha’s eyes flick down to her basketball shoes and Toni knows that she’s been caught. 

“Toni, no.” 

“Toni,  _ yes _ .” With that she edges by Martha, fast walking as quickly as she can to get out of the apartment. 

“I hope you know I’m gonna laugh when you get caught,” Martha calls after her, but Toni just sticks her tongue out at her friend and shuts the door. Rachel is already waiting in the parking lot, blasting some random song that Toni swears she’s heard somewhere. As soon as Toni is in the car, Rachel throws it into drive and speeds her way onto the city streets. 

Despite herself, Toni finds that she’s smiling as Rachel shouts along to the music. It reminds her of taking buses with the team to their games, everyone yelling over each other and doing their best to get pumped up. Right now Toni would kill to be able to skip forward through all the injury shit to get to the actual season. 

For now, though, shooting is the most she’ll get. So when they walk into one of the clinic’s practice gyms, Toni takes a deep breath and promises that she’ll make the most of it. 

That doesn’t last long. 

For once, Toni is actually being careful (or least, as careful as one can be when they’re completely disregarding the medical guidelines they were given). Rachel’s doing a ball handling drill on one end of the court, leaving Toni with the other end. She’s mostly trying to get her shot back, standing close to the hoop and focusing on getting the motions right. It doesn’t exactly take a lot of movement, since she’s just standing there, so Toni thinks she’s safe.

She is not safe, as she discovers when the door to the gym bangs open and Shelby is standing in its wake. “Please tell me you’re not practicing,” the trainer says with a strained smile once she’s made her way over to Toni. 

“Um, would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?” It’s a weak response, and they both know it. Shelby shakes her head and grabs the ball out of Toni’s hands, chucking it at Rachel’s end of the court.

“You’re coming with me,” she says to Toni before turning to Rachel. “And you, I will be talking to later. Y’all got a lot of nerve, comin’ in here and actin’ like I wouldn’t know.” Toni would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit scared, which might be why she lets the trainer drag her out of the gym. Rachel gets left behind, looking stupefied, but Toni is more worried about how she’s going to save her own ass. 

“Look—”

“Nope,” Shelby cuts her off. “You got to be mad at me, now it’s my turn. You’re gonna sit in my office and rest, and I am gonna supervise you. And then, I’m gonna call Martha and tell her to never let you do anything with Rachel again.” True to her word, the trainer directs Toni to a chair and makes her sit down. Toni feels a lot like a chastised child, especially when Shelby forces a small cup of water into her hand and gives her a pointed stare until she drinks it. 

Toni is still so baffled by this turn of events that she has to pinch herself to make sure she’s not hallucinating. She tries to sit in silence for a while in case Shelby is actually mad at her, but soon her curiosity gets the best of her. “How did you know we were shooting?” 

“I had a hunch,” Shelby replies shortly. It seems like there’s something more to the answer, and Toni narrows her eyes as she looks the other woman up and down. 

“Are you really mad at me?”

This time Shelby turns around in her chair, considering Toni for a moment before she answers. “No.” A small smile appears on her face, the first sign of friendliness Toni’s seen from her all day. “But you have to understand that I want the best for you. And I think you want that too, which means staying out of the gym until I clear you. I know it sucks, but you could make the injury a lot worse.” Toni swallows as she absorbs what’s being said. Maybe she didn’t entirely think things through. “I really do want you to play this season, Toni.” 

There’s a soft look in the other woman’s eyes that throws Toni off. She entirely forgets whatever she wanted to say, all her attention focused on trying to decipher Shelby. “Okay,” she finally says after the silence stretches on for a moment too long. 

“Does that mean you’ll listen to me?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Shelby looks at her for a minute longer, then turns back around to work. Toni tries to relax back into her chair, but the plastic seems like it was molded in the most uncomfortable way possible. If she thought that silence with Shelby was awkward before, Toni knows now that basically being grounded by Shelby is infinitely worse. She keeps sneaking looks at the other woman, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. 

An hour later, Toni looks at the clock on the wall and has to hold back a groan when she realizes that it’s actually barely been fifteen minutes since she first sat in the stupid plastic chair. “Let’s play twenty questions,” she announces. 

She’s half-expecting Shelby to just ignore her, but instead the trainer gives a small nod and says “Shoot” from her place at the desk. Toni instantly perks up in her chair, brainstorming questions she wants to ask. 

“Favorite color?”

“Yellow,” Shelby answers without hesitation. 

“Best friend’s name?”

This answer takes a bit longer. “Becca.” 

“Favorite subject in school?”

“English.”

“Then how the hell did you end up as a trainer?” Toni laughs. 

“I thought it would get me out of Texas the fastest, and I figured helpin’ people would be nice for a change,” Shelby says. She seems to make a decision while she answers, because she closes whatever she was working on and turns around to face Toni after that. 

They continue playing the game, Toni shooting questions rapid-fire until she runs out of things to ask and the trainer gets to ask her own questions. It’s surprisingly fun, although anything would beat sitting in silence again. She learns that Shelby was a pageant queen, that she has a sister and a brother, that the animal she thinks she’s most like is a golden retriever (of course). Toni finds that once it’s her turn, she doesn’t mind sharing about herself to the trainer. For someone who’s favorite phrase is “Fuck off”, it’s a strange turn of events. 

Even stranger is the fact that when Shelby finally calls Martha to pick Toni up, the basketball player realizes she’s actually the tiniest bit disappointed that she has to leave. For a split second before Toni leaves the office, they just stand there smiling at each other.

Toni immediately curses at the fluttery feeling in her chest, one that refuses to leave. The whole “feelings” thing is getting really fucking inconvenient. 

True to her word, Martha laughs at her when Toni gets in the car. “How was it?” She asks once they’re on the road, and Toni has to consider how she wants to answer.

“It was weird,” she settles on. 

“Huh,” is all Marty says, clearly distracted by the traffic in front of them. Toni takes the opportunity to stare out the car window like she’s the protagonist in a dramatic YA tv series.

“Hey, do you know if Fatin has Shelby’s number?” Martha shakes her head in response, but Toni has a feeling she knows the answer. She has a hunch of her own, and she’s most definitely going to kill Fatin if that hunch is correct. 

(She’ll never tell anyone that a tiny, miniscule part of herself hopes that Fatin got her caught in the gym on purpose, because that would mean that she’s not imagining all this.) 


	8. eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm giving the gays everything they want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaha i am weirdly nervous about posting this, but at least i'm on time !! shout out as always to my beta reader, and to everyone who commented on the last chapter - y'all make me so happy, for real. feel free to yell at me about this chapter sldkfjsl
> 
> hope you enjoy :)

The day Toni gets caught in the gym marks a shift, literally. Soon after that, Shelby moves her to more strength-building exercises, and sensing how antsy she is gives the player a list of approved activities for her free time. They’re mostly just calisthenics, but Toni still enjoys the relative freedom. 

Another plus to their new routine is that Toni doesn’t have to sit through agonizingly long massages as often. Don’t get her wrong, Shelby’s really good (like  _ really fucking good _ ) at massages, and it felt like heaven for her knee. Sitting there trying to keep her cool while Shelby was basically groping her legs, though?

Toni’s good without that part, thanks. 

Besides, now Rachel can’t make fun of her for the blush that spread across her face whenever Shelby is within three feet of her. Proximity is still an issue for Toni, but she’s found that it’s a lot harder to feel sexy when she’s sweating her ass off and focusing all her energy on trying not to fall down. For now, she just counts herself lucky that Shelby hasn’t noticed her freaking out. 

Unfortunately that bubble is quickly burst, because Toni can’t seem to stop embarrassing herself. 

“Are you hot?” Shelby asks her one session in the middle of demonstrating an exercise. Toni doesn’t know what she’s talking about, until she looks in the mirror and sees that her face is the exact shade of red as when she was five years old and got the worst (and only) sunburn of her life. Her situation isn’t helped at all when Shelby takes her silence as confusion. “I just meant, your face is all red. Are you feelin’ okay?”

“I—um—well,” Toni stutters, grasping at straws to find a valid explanation. The trainer eyes her curiously, waiting for an explanation. “You’re right, I’m just hot. It must be like a hundred degrees out, am I right?” She laughs awkwardly, then immediately curses herself. At no point in her tenure in Minnesota has the temperature ever gotten even close to 100 degrees. 

In that moment, Toni suddenly knows how a fish flopping around on the ground feels, and she’s pretty sure Shelby can sense her internal panic. It’s also clear that Toni didn’t think her claim through. Before she knows what’s happening, the trainer is pushing a glass of water into her hands and gesturing to a chair behind her. “Sit and drink. Can’t have you faintin’ on me.” 

She can't be mad about Shelby’s reasoning—fainting is the only way Toni could possibly embarrass herself more at this point—so she sinks into the chair without protest. Shelby gives her a pointed glance, which leads to Toni chugging the water and consequently choking on nothing. While she’s coughing away, the basketball player makes a mental note to just show up to her next appointment with a paper bag over her head. 

Eventually she stops coughing. It’s only then that she realizes Shelby’s hand has been rubbing her back gently, trying to help. The trainer looks concerned, an expression that for some reason makes Toni want to hug her. “You gonna be alright?”

“Yeah,” Toni rasps, throat still raw. Shelby’s hand has stayed on her back, and after the ordeal she just went through Toni isn’t quite sure how she feels about that. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Don’t be,” the trainer grins. “But I don’t want to overwork you if you’re sick or something, so starting now we’re gonna call it a rest day.” 

“I’m not sick—” Toni starts, but the protest dies in her throat when Shelby raises a questioning eyebrow. “Fine,” she groans.

Shelby points at the table across the room. “Table.”

“What?” Toni is dreading what the trainer might say next, so naturally she plays dumb. 

“Get on the table,” Shelby clarifies, as if that wasn’t already clear. “It looked like your leg was tight before you almost fainted, so I might as well see if I can’t loosen it up a bit.” Toni grumbles some weak excuse about not actually fainting, but follows the directions anyway. Once she’s situated on the table, it’s hard to keep all her nervous energy in check. She might vibrate herself onto the floor with the way her legs are bouncing.

“Tell me if anything hurts.” It’s the usual routine, even though nothing ever does hurt. One of the trainer’s hands appears on Toni’s injured leg, calming it, and without anywhere for the energy to go, Toni is stuck with her thoughts. 

Which is extremely problematic, since most of her thoughts are somewhere along the line of  _ hot trainer touching me oh my god don’t freak out definitely don’t faint but trainer hot good lord _ . It’s just like high school, if you replaced Toni’s shitty school with an expensive practice facility, swapped out Toni’s sophomore-year crush for an athletic trainer, and also made Toni into a professional athlete. Or maybe it’s nothing like high school, but Toni sure feels like a fucking high schooler. 

“Has anyone ever told you your hands are magic?” Toni asks, and immediately claps a hand over her mouth. Somehow she always manages to ask the worst questions. 

Luckily, Shelby just laughs and continues, unbothered. “A couple people,” she replies easily. Unexpected jealousy flares up in Toni’s chest. “What’s wrong now?” the trainer asks when she glances up at Toni’s face. 

“Huh?”

“You look like you want to punch someone,” she snorts, and Toni finds that she’s laughing along despite herself. 

“Excuse you, I’m a very peaceful person,” Toni shoots back, which only makes Shelby laugh harder. “Okay, it definitely wasn’t  _ that _ funny!” she protests after a minute. The massage has been temporarily abandoned in favor of the trainer collecting herself, which Toni doesn’t mind one bit. 

When she’s finally done wiping the tears from her eyes, Shelby just stares down Toni with a wide smile on her face. “The first time we met you yelled at me,” she deadpans. Toni’s frown deepens, which only makes her start laughing again. 

“I apologized!” Toni squawks, but it’s a lost cause. She resigns herself to waiting out Shelby’s laughter, settling back into the table with her arms crossed. 

The trainer finally manages to collect herself after a few minutes, and the massage is back on. Toni tries to distract herself by staring at the ceiling, but that doesn’t last very long. Instead her eyes are drawn to a glint of metal on Shelby’s chest, and for the first time she notices the little gold cross sitting between the blonde’s collarbones. From that moment on, distracting herself is a lost cause. 

“You’re quiet today,” Shelby comments at some point (while she’s very helpfully moved on to Toni’s thigh). 

“Yeah, just…” Toni trails off as she searches for an excuse that’s not wildly inappropriate. “Things” turns out to be all she can come up with, so she just nods nonchalantly and hopes that Shelby wasn’t actually listening. 

“Things,” the trainer repeats. “That makes sense.” 

“Totally.”

After that completely valid excuse, they fall back into silence until Shelby is finished. She helps Toni off the table when she’s done, and without anything to do they both end up standing in the middle of Shelby’s office. “Um,” Toni says just to interrupt the quiet. 

“How’re you feeling now?” Shelby asks, and suddenly Toni is very aware of how close they are. 

“Better,” Toni lies, because really, her heart feels like a first-grader hopped up on sugar. 

“That’s good.” Despite trying to resist, Toni’s eyes keep flicking down to Shelby’s cross, watching as the gold catches the light, then back up to her lips. It’s a vicious cycle. If she wasn’t trapped in it, she might have noticed the way the trainer’s eyes were following a similar pattern. 

In the middle of all the staring, Toni unconsciously starts to reach out to touch the necklace. She catches herself halfway, which leaves her hand hovering awkwardly right around Shelby’s boobs. Toni withdraws it quickly and the trainer clears her throat but doesn’t move. “So,” Toni starts again.

“So,” Shelby replies, but still neither of them move. It’s unbearable, the logical side of Toni screaming at her to  _ get the fuck out  _ while the rest of her is cheering for whatever the hell is happening. But logic can go fuck itself, because somehow Toni and Shelby keep getting closer without actually moving. It gets to the point where Toni unconsciously reaches out her hand once again, this time brushing the trainer’s skin until Shelby reaches for it and relocates it to her shoulder.

All of the air has left Toni’s lungs. 

She can feel Shelby’s skin under her fingers, feels blonde hair brushing against them; she’s not even sure what happens except that suddenly there isn’t any space between them at all. They’re kissing, intertwined in the middle of an office, and Toni doesn’t ever want it to stop.

Until it does stop, and she realizes what a colossal fucking mistake that was. So she tears herself away and speed-walks out of the clinic as fast as she can, leaving Shelby behind staring after her. 

And she thought it couldn’t get worse. Past Toni was so naive. 

///

_ Shelby: we should probably talk.  _

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to comment and tell me this isn't terrible, because otherwise i will have no idea lmao


End file.
